Tech Springs Into Action While the world speculates about how AI could change our lives in the future, 3PLs are already using some aspects of that technology to make their customers’ supply chains more flexible, resilient, and ecient. “We began implementing our first AI tool in 2019,” says Matt Wagner, chief of sales and marketing at Jarrett, a 3PL in Orrville, Ohio. Today, Jarrett uses AI in several ways. For instance, it has integrated its proprietary transportation management system with Parade.ai, an AI-fueled application for managing transportation capacity. The goal is to make decisions faster and more eciently than even highly knowledgeable human operators can do. “Understanding how to manage carriers, where their footprints are, and what providers may be great opportunities for a specific shipment can help us act faster and more eciently and improve the client experience,” Wagner says. Simulation and modeling software help Nexterus, a supply chain and logistics provider based in New Freedom, Pa., keep shippers flexible in the face of all sorts of disruptions, says Ryan Polako, the company’s president. It also helps Nexterus and its partners make strategic decisions, such as where to place distribution centers or how to reduce a company’s carbon footprint, “The ‘what-if’ game has been very busy for us,” Polako says. One newer technology in use at KDL Logistics is the dimensioner, a tool that calculates a load’s density based on its dimensions and weight. Many LTL carriers use density to classify a load for pricing purposes. If a shipper guesses wrong about how its carrier will classify a load, it might undercharge its own customer for shipping and then get a shock when the LTL bill arrives. “There are tools that can take a scan and get a weight, so they can appropriately charge a freight class,” says Rob Hammel, co-owner and managing director at KDL.
When supply chain disruptions occur, such as the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse that closed the Port of Baltimore, 3PLs take action to keep customer freight moving.
enough information to create fake credentials and pass themselves off as legitimate truckers. To protect its customers, Jarrett carefully vets the carriers it uses and implements other precautions in house. For instance, it recently formed a partnership with CargoNet, a theft prevention and recovery service. “We’re able to utilize the knowledge CargoNet has to identify additional new trends and help enhance our internal policies and processes,” Wagner says. PREVENTION TRAINING Jarrett also teaches shippers how to avert potential fraud. That knowledge came in handy recently when staff at one of Jarrett’s customers detected some suspi- cious signals from a driver who arrived to pick up a load. “The staff followed processes that we had helped lay out,” says Wagner. “They asked a lot more questions, based on some new awareness and information. The driver got nervous and ended up leaving.” While shippers contend with the risk of theft, those who serve retailers may also contend with the risk of customer chargebacks. Penalties for failing to comply with every detail of a retailer’s delivery instructions are perfectly legal, of course. But, like cargo theft, they disrupt the bottom line.
For vendors of consumer packaged goods (CPG) that see a lot of chargebacks from big box retailers, Jarrett conducts analytics to pinpoint what’s triggering those charges. Sometimes the problem lies with a carrier that isn’t hitting required delivery dates. But a performance analysis could also locate failures elsewhere. Sometimes, for instance, the rst delivery appointment a retailer can provide falls after the required delivery date, setting up the shipper for failure no matter what. “The freight was there on time, but they weren’t able to deliver it,” Wagner says. “That’s a consignee exception or failure.” Sometimes the shipper is at fault for not giving the carrier enough time to make the delivery deadline. Sometimes Jarrett is responsible. “If we create an issue, we hold ourselves accountable,” Wagner says. By analyzing performance and pinpointing non-compliance issues that were not the shipper’s fault, Jarrett helped one CPG company cut chargebacks by more than 90% over 18 months. There’s no end to the list of conditions that can interrupt the orderly ow of goods through the supply chain, or add
signi cant, unexpected costs. “We always have to manage
disruptions,” notes Wagner. “And those disruptions always evolve and change.” n
124 Inbound Logistics • July 2024
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